Sir Bernard Crossland, who has died aged 87, was one of the UK's most eminent engineers. He was appointed to the chair of mechanical engineering at Queen's University Belfast in 1959 by Sir Eric Ashby (later Lord Ashby), a reforming vice-chancellor who, like Crossland, was a passionate believer in the importance of technological education for society. Both shared the view that engineers were often more widely informed than students of the humanities. Crossland once told the professor of history that he possessed – and had read and enjoyed – two of his books, and followed up by asking his colleague whether he owned any books on engineering; the answer did not surprise him.

His highest-profile work came after he left a thoroughly transformed department in 1984. He was one of the four expert technical assessors for the investigation into the fire at King's Cross underground station in 1987, which had caused the deaths of 31 people. The resulting Fennell Report recommended a thorough overhaul of fire detection and prevention measures, and an extension of the ban on smoking in sub-surface areas to all parts of the underground system.

Crossland chaired the inquiry into the roof collapse at Bilsthorpe Colliery, Nottinghamshire, in 1994, and served on the inquiries into the collapse of the passenger walkway at Ramsgate Harbour, Kent, in 1994, and the rail accident at Ladbroke Grove, west London, in 1999. Abroad, he was an expert witness from 1984 to 1987 on the investigation into the causes of the explosion at a liquid gas plant in Qatar.

Crossland was born in London, the third child, and second son, of Reginald and Katherine Crossland. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all engineers. Reginald opened a garage and engineering business in 1926 in Whitstable, Kent, and the young Bernard was educated at the Simon Langton grammar school, Canterbury. At the age of 16, he determined to become an engineer, notwithstanding the opposition of his headmaster.

He obtained an apprenticeship at Rolls-Royce in Derby, with day-release studies at the regional technical college. It was wartime and the company was developing its Merlin engines, which powered the Hurricanes and Spitfires of the Battle of Britain. In 1941, Crossland was awarded a bursary to complete the external London BSc (Eng) at Nottingham University College (later Nottingham University). He graduated in 1943 and returned to Rolls-Royce to work on problems of engine vibration.

In 1945, Crossland took up a lectureship at Luton technical college and a year later was appointed to an assistant lectureship in mechanical engineering at Bristol University. His life as an academic engineer, with a strong practical bent, had begun. Many of his students were ex-servicemen who demanded good teaching. With his towering height and "gargantuan" voice (his description), he was an imposing force in the lecture theatre and – as his non-engineering colleagues quickly discovered – in the committee room.

He possessed an infectious enthusiasm and his classes were enlivened by attention-grabbing experiments. One of his early students recalled that "all who met him could not fail to become interested in engineering". He developed two main areas of research: high-pressure engineering, which had important practical uses, for example, in the production of polythene, which was becoming widely used throughout industry, and the manufacture of thick-wall cylinders; and in explosive welding and forming methods, which had many applications, from the manufacture of stainless steel dental and cranial plates, to the repair of faulty tubes in heat exchangers, particularly those in nuclear reactors.

When Crossland went to Bristol, engineering teaching was shared between the technical college and the university. He was involved in the integration of the two institutions and with the design of a new building and laboratories. This experience was invaluable when he arrived in 1959 in Belfast, where mechanical engineering was taught in the college of technology a mile or so from the university. The workshops contained machinery that deserved to be in a museum.

A new building on the university campus was already at the planning stage, but for some years Crossland carried out research in a laboratory set up in the front room of the house he and his family rented from the university. From such humble domestic beginnings emerged a department with a world-wide reputation.

As head of department (1959-82), dean (1964-67), and pro-vice-chancellor (1978-82), Crossland carried a heavy burden of administration, made no easier by the outbreak of civil unrest in the mid-1960s and later by reductions in per capita university funding. In 1982 he resigned the headship of the department and took up a research chair. Two years later he retired.

Retirement for Crossland meant a quarter of a century of engineering research, industrial consultancies and dedicated public service. He was a member of numerous committees and councils supporting economic development and education in Northern Ireland.

Crossland had become a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1942. Forty-four years later, he was elected president. He had a pivotal role in the establishment of the Irish Academy of Engineering, and his awards included the James Watt international gold medal (of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers) and the Kelvin gold medal (of the Institution of Civil Engineers). He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1979 and knighted in 1990. In February 2010, he received the Royal Academy of Engineering Sustained Achievement award.

Crossland is survived by his wife, Audrey, whom he married in 1946, two daughters and a granddaughter.

• Bernard Crossland, engineer and public servant, born 20 October 1923; died 17 January 2011